By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
NO HOPE; Budget jumps from K177.8 billion to K217.1 billion
Foreign debt jumps!
Excluding publicly guaranteed external
debt, external debt increased by 4.1 percent to US $15.17 billion from US $14.57 billion at end of December 2023.
Government proposes;
●to spend K217.1 billion or 26.6 percent of GDP.
● Out of this amount, K174.2 billion or 80.2 percent of the Budget will be financed by domestic revenues while K8.2 billion or 3.8 percent will be grants from our Cooperating
Partners.
● The balance of K34.7 billion or
16.0 percent will be financed through
borrowing.
● Domestic borrowing will be K15.4 billion or 7.1 percent while K19.4 billion or 8.9 percent will come from external sources.
●As a share of GDP, domestic borrowing is projected at 1.9 percent while external borrowing is 2.4percent.
●Details of the borrowing are in the
Annual Borrowing Plan.
Instead of reporting the budget facts to your readership, you choose instead to lead with the misleading opinions from a opposition propagandist, Emmanuel Mwamba.
The budget presentation is real news.
Didn’t any of your so called journalist go to the budget presentation yesterday?
Also, when see what is written to accompany the headline is thrash.
Us as readers deserve better.
It seems like mathematics was not one of Mr. Mwamba’s strength at school. A jump from K177 billion to K217 billion in the budget is over 22% change compared to the 4.1% in the proposed debt. This means over 18% of the increase in the budget will come from the government revenue collections, how is that bad for the country? For any reasonable person, this would be considered a very good job considering the challenges brought by the drought in the year.